Glenn Beck and the Yearning for Fascism

Glenn Beck and the Yearning for Fascism

His so-called restoring honor rally last weekend assumed that somehow
America has been dishonored, and that is a classic trope of fascists.

Nor was I comforted by all talk from Beck about “America today begins to turn back to God.”

Nor was I comforted by the full-throated and repeated chants of “USA, USA.”

Nor by Sarah Palin having the gall to claim “we feel the spirit of
Dr. Martin Luther King,” this just 10 days after she told Dr. Laura to
“reload,” after the talk show host said the N word 11 times in five
minutes.

As if the rally wasn’t enough, Beck continued on his crusade during
the week. Check this comment out: Beck said, “There are a lot of
universities that are as dangerous with the indoctrination of the
children as terrorists are in Iran or North Korea.”

The irony is that Ahmadinejad has actually denounced the universities
in Iran with similar disdain. One year into his first term, he asked
scornfully “why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in
the universities." He and Beck see eye to eye on that one.

Beck made a fool of himself also when he said, later in the week,
that a flock of geese that appeared in the sky “was God’s flyover,”
taking the place of an Air Force flyover he was not able to arrange. All
of Beck’s references to “divine providence” and doing the work of God
reminded me of a quote from W. S. Merwin, our new poet laureate, who
once wrote: “The president of lies quotes the voices of God.”

I’ve been taking seriously the warnings of Noam Chomsky http://www.progressive.org/rothschild0610.html,
who says he senses “the dark clouds of fascism” gathering here at home.
I also take seriously the writings of Chris Hedges, the former New York
Times reporter and author of several great books, including “War Is a
Force that Gives Us Meaning.” A couple years ago, Hedges wrote another
book called “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On
America.”

And back in March, Hedges elaborated on the theme:
“The language of violence always presages violence. When someone like
Palin posts a map with cross hairs on the districts of Democrats, when
she says “Don’t Retreat, Instead—RELOAD!” there are desperate people
cleaning their weapons who listen. When Christian fascists stand in the
pulpits of megachurches and denounce Barack Obama as the Antichrist,
there are messianic believers who listen. . . .These movements are not
yet full-blown fascist movements. They do not openly call for the
extermination of ethnic or religious groups. They do not openly advocate
violence. But, as I was told by Fritz Stern, a scholar of fascism who
has written about the origins of Nazism, ‘In Germany there was a
yearning for fascism before fascism was invented.’ It is the yearning
that we now see, and it is dangerous. If we do not immediately
reincorporate the unemployed and the poor back into the economy, giving
them jobs and relief from crippling debt, then the nascent racism and
violence that are leaping up around the edges of American society will
become a full-blown conflagration. Left unchecked, the hatred for
radical Islam will transform itself into a hatred for Muslims. The
hatred for undocumented workers will become a hatred for Mexicans and
Central Americans. The hatred for those not defined by this largely
white movement as American patriots will become a hatred for
African-Americans. The hatred for liberals will morph into a hatred for
all democratic institutions, from universities to government agencies to
the press.”

Hedges was prescient here, anticipating the anti-immigrant wave and
the anti-Muslim wave—and even Beck’s swipe at the universities.

Hedges also talked about the urgent need to give people jobs lest more people succumb to the lure of fascism.

Another intellectual I greatly admire, Walden Bello, just echoed
Hedges’s warning about the economic crisis feeding into fascism. In his
article “Can You Say, Fascism? The Political Consequences of Stagnation,”
Bellow writes: “The common failure of both market fundamentalists and
technocratic Keynesians so far to address the fears of the unemployed,
the about-to-be unemployed, and the vast numbers of economically
insecure people will most likely produce social forces that would tackle
their fears and problems head-on. A failure of the left to innovatively
fill this space will inevitably spawn a reinvigorated right with fewer
apprehensions about state intervention, one that could combine
technocratic Keynesian initiatives with a populist but reactionary
social and cultural program. There is a term for such a regime: fascist.
. . . Fascism in the United States? It's not as far-fetched as you
might think.”

Further

Academics are increasingly, ingeniously fighting back against an Orwellian "Professor Watchlist" aimed at exposing "radical" teachers. The list has inspired online trolls to name their own suspects - Albus Dumbledore, Dr. Pepper, Mr. Spock - and a Watchlist Redux to honor not trash targets from Jesus to teachers daring to "think critically about power." Now 100 Notre Dame professors have asked to join the list in solidarity, proclaiming, "We wish to be counted among those you are watching."